Kushiel's Avatar (Phedre's Trilogy #3)

I went straightaway to Joscelin, sitting on the bloodstained stones and gasping for air, his right hand clasped loosely about the hilt of his battered sword, his left arm cradled in his lap. He smelled of scorched wool and hot metal. "The boy?" he asked, eyes rolling to meet mine.

"Alive," I said, my voice choked. "Alive, my love."

"See?" Imriel knelt in front of him, his face anxious. "Joscelin, see? I am here."

Joscelin nodded and closed his eyes. "See to the others," he mur mured. "I'll not die of a broken arm."

I got to my feet. "Stay with him," I said to Imriel. "Do you hear me? Stay with him, or I swear, I'll kill you myself."

"I will." Imriel's voice broke on the words. Huddled on the flagstones, he looked at me with his mother's eyes, and such an expression in them as hers had never held. "I promise, Phèdre, I will."

It would have to do. While the surviving Drujani and Tatars, addled by opium and terror, made their surrender—some to stunned members of the zenana and some to the Magi, openly weeping before the Sacred Fire—I went to assess the wounded and number the dead.

And outside the gates of Daršanga, the revolution spread.

What stories they tell in Drujan, I cannot say. I did not linger long enough to hear them told, and I have never been back, nor shall I, not while I draw breath. This I know to be true, for I learned it that night: the fires kindled in the palace ignited in the city and elsewhere. Jahanadar, the Land of Fires, reclaimed its ancient title, and the hand of Ahura Mazda reached out to reclaim his own.

Well and good; so he might. But it was the folk of a hundred disparate nations, captives and slaves, who paid his ransom.

So many died. So many.

In the doorway to the kitchens, Erich the Skaldi lay dying, his body pierced by a dozen wounds, a sword in his hand and a look of peace on his face. Rushad, a carving knife in his hand, lay slain across his knees, having done his valiant best to defend his fallen friend; gentle Rushad, who was no more a warrior than I. All I could do was to clasp Erich's hand and sing softly to him, cradle-songs, such as I had learned as a slave. Erich died smiling, his hand slackening in mine. And I went on to the next. So many, so many dead. Jolanta, her fingers clutched about a Drujani sword-hilt, stuck together with blood. Nazneen the Ephesian, willowy in death as in life, a Tatar war-axe buried in her skull. Among the women of the zenana, one in three had died . . . Erich, Rushad—two of the Akkadian eunuchs. Gone, all of them.

But there were survivors, too.

Uru-Azag came limping from the inner doors of Daršanga, grey- faced and grim, gathering a contingent to secure the fortress. After the Sacred Fire, there was no resistance. With Kaneka's aid, conferring with Joscelin, who had propped himself on a bench, they got matters well in hand. Here and there, an initiate from the vahmyâcam wandered in dazed shock, having learned too late that their offerings were in vain. Angra Mainyu's reign was broken.

There was one man, with a crimson spill of blood drying on his chin, who took it hardest. I remembered him. He was one who had brought his son to the dais, a boy no older than four or five years. The Mahrkagir's age, I thought, when the Akkadians had taken Daršanga. We had struck too late for the boy; his father had eaten his heart.

Would that there had been another way.

I did what I could, ignoring the thanks-giving prayers of the Magi, calling upon my experience of too many battlefields to help Drucilla, who had bound her own wounds and remained on her feet, trembling. She pressed her fist hard against her belly and gasped orders. The Carthaginian carpenter's daughter was a shadow at my shoulder, aiding without argument, recruiting others. The Caerdicci seamstress who had altered the fit of my gown learned to sew flesh and sinew under Drucilla's tutelage.

Together, we saved a good many.

Until at last it was Joscelin's turn. Removing the chain-mail shirt alone was a torture.

I could not have done it without Drucilla. It was she who instructed me on how to draw his arm straight, pulling by main force until the shattered bones fell into alignment, feeling with delicate fingertips that each was in place. It was a mercy that none had pierced the skin. Cold sweat stood in beads on Joscelin's brow, and he swore a blue streak, using terms I did not know he knew. And then it was done. I bound the fracture as Drucilla instructed, wrapping it firmly with lengths of woolen cloth and securing it with a careful splint.

"A sling," Drucilla murmured, plucking at her shawl. "To keep the arm immobile. Use this. I'll have no need of it."

"No," I whispered, kneeling beside her. "Drucilla, no."

"I'll have no need," she repeated faintly, smiling, reaching up to touch my hair with her maimed hands. "Phèdre. You spoke true, didn't you? An ill-luck name. Still, I will die as I lived, a physician to the end, and not a creature of darkness. You have given me that. It is not a gift I thought to find; not here."

"No." Tears coursed my cheeks, salt and bitter; it seemed unfair that she, who had fought so valiantly to preserve life, to preserve her own sanity, should die. "If you will only tell us what needs be done . . . Drucilla, we can do it, I swear to you!"

Behind me, the Caerdicci seamstress murmured agreement, and other voices echoed it.

"The blade has pierced my bowels," Drucilla said gently, her hand falling away, fingers trailing damp across my tear-stained face. "I feel it, child; the poison in my blood-stream. If you had a chirurgeon's tools and a chirurgeon's skill. . ." She smiled with sorrow and kindness, plucking at the woolen fabric that draped her. "It would still be too late. Take the shawl."

Shaking with grief, I did. It was her wish. She watched the seam stress Helena fold it with care and tie it in exacting knots, making a sling for Joscelin's arm. When it was done, her lashes fluttered closed, and Uru-Azag and two of the Akkadians carried her with all tenderness to the corner of the hall where we had established our infirmary, laying her on cushions purloined from the zenana and heaping blankets atop her.

"Remember this," I told Imriel, who watched gravely. "Remember her courage. Remember them all.”

Wordless, he nodded.

It was somewhere in the small hours of the night that Drucilla died, and sometime afterward that the Chief Magus came for me, a lamp in his hand.

"Come," he said in Persian, as I blinked out of a half-waking doze on a makeshift pallet where I maintained a vigil in the infirmary. Somewhere, a clean robe had been found for the old man and the worst of the filth washed from his hair and beard. For all the deep lines that scored his face, he looked stronger than I would have believed possible mere hours before. "We must speak."

"Stay with them," I said to Joscelin, who had come instantly alert, reaching for his sword with his good right hand.

"And let you out of my sight? Not likely," he muttered, levering himself to his feet and calling one of the Akkadians to stand guard over the injured, and the sleeping Imriel. "Now," he said to the ancient Magus, "we will go."

Arshaka inclined his head. "Bringer of Omens. As you wish."

And so saying, he led us through the palace, up a winding stair to one of the lookout towers. There, in a small garret, a Drujani guard lay dead—who had killed him, I do not know—and a shuttered window had been forced open, a square of darkness looking out over the city below and the land beyond.

"Behold," said the Chief Magus. "Jahanadar, the Land of Fires."

In the city of Daršanga, the Sacred Fire burned in the ruined temple. Everywhere there were torches lit, wavering in lines. Voices raised in celebration and prayer floated on the night breeze, crying Ahura Mazda's name. Beyond, across the plain of the peninsula, blazes were scattered like stars emerging from the clouds.

"You cannot stay here," the Magus Arshaka said gently. "The Lord of Light has reclaimed his people. Soon, they will come for Daršanga, and you are too few to hold it."

Joscelin made a sound in his throat that might have been a dour laugh.

"It is ours now, my lord Magus," I reminded him.

"It is," he acknowledged. "This night. You have captives, servants, Magi, all bent to your will. For what you have done, Ahura Mazda permits it. What of the dawn? Will the women of the zenana fight once the madness of Angra Mainyu has passed? Or shall you hold the doors with a handful of eunuchs and wounded warriors? Will Ahura Mazda's grace endure, while you send for aid from Khebbel-im-Akkad and level the Spear of Shamash at our heart?" Slowly, regretfully, Arshaka shook his venerable head. "It will not. Better that you should throw open the doors of Daršanga and go home. Leave us to our own."

I rested my hands on the windowsill, looking at the men of the secondary garrison assembling at the doors below, their hands empty of weapons, pleading for admission that they might be redeemed in the light of the Sacred Fire. "There are a few thousand of the Mahrkagir's men remaining between Daršanga and the border, my lord Magus. We thought to take a sea route."

"You have sailors among you, oarsmen?" He read the answer in my averted face. "If there were such a vessel to suit your needs, I would walk among the people and order it myself, child. But there is not; only such fishing craft as will land you shattered upon the rocks should you attempt such a journey. Your route lies over land. Angra Mainyu's power lies broken, and his former servants will answer to the people of Drujan. If you will give me your word that you will sue for peace on our behalf when you reach Akkad, I will order that your company be allowed to pass unmolested."

"You have the power to order this?" I asked him.

Lamplight lent his creased features a stern dignity. "By the grace of Ahura Mazda, I do."

"Ahura Mazda." My voice hardened. "My lord Magus, I have never wittingly blasphemed the gods of any land, and I do not discount your long travail. But this night. . . this night. . . you owe any power you hold to the grace of Blessed Elua and the gods of Terre d'Ange, to Naamah's compassion, to Kushiel's cruel justice, and above all to Cassiel's loyalty."